Secondary menu

Main menu

SYEFEST

Schoolyards present a wealth of opportunities for exploring ecological concepts, and the Cary Institute has long been a pioneer in helping teachers develop authentic and worthwhile investigations for students. The Schoolyard Ecology for Elementary School Teachers (SYEFEST) project created a number protocols and lessons, most of them inquiry-based, for outdoor study.

Making Your Own Tree Key

Topic(s):

Biodiversity

Overview

Create a key to trees sampled from around the schoolyard. Use only features that are clearly visible and consistent between the different specimens you have that are from the same species. Make the key as simple (i.e., the fewest steps) and as user-friendly (i.e., the fewest new terms or hard choices) as possible. This is a fun way to gain direct familiarity with the idea of a dichotomous (branching in two parts) key. You can create keys to lots of everyday things - children in your classroom, types of silverware, seeds, toys, art supplies, tools, etc. Eventually, students can create and continue build and refine their own keys to the organisms they observe and describe in their schoolyard studies - leaves, branches, fruits, insect, etc.

Time

1 class period

Setting

Schoolyard

Materials

At least 2 twigs from each of 2-10 different species of local trees

Habitat

forest grassland urban

Type of Organism

Plants

Procedure

Look through the branches with your group. Decide which are from the same and which are from different species before proceeding.

Plan as a group what features you can use to distinguish between different species. Consider: how the leaves are attached to the stem (opposite or alternate), whether leaves are simple or compound, the nature of leaf lobes, and the texture of leaf edges.

Write the key as a series of "either-or" choices, unless it is absolutely necessary to have three choices (not ideal except as the last set of choices before identifying the individual):